Apple plans to occupy the new campus by 2015, but no outsiders will be allowed.

Apple's new "spaceship" campus will be entirely closed off to outsiders, so don't count on taking a leisurely stroll through the quad or stopping by a new campus store anytime soon. That's just one of several details that Apple has begun revealing to neighbors as it prepares to build the new campus, which will act primarily as a research facility in Cupertino. (It won't replace the 1 Infinite Loop headquarters—at least not yet.) The company is asking neighbors for feedback on the designs before it finalizes the plans and begins building. Apple doesn't expect to occupy the new campus for another three years.

Apple has begun mailing pamphlets to neighbors of the new campus outlining the company's plans. 9to5Mac obtained one of these brochures and posted several photos—the letter to residents outlines the boundaries of "Apple Campus 2" and explains which changes will be made to the current landscape of the area. The company also highlighted its commitment to the environment and said that the main, ring-shaped 2.8 million square foot building (as well as the surrounding research buildings) will all be LEED certified. "Respect for our neighbors was a priority as we designed Apple Campus 2," wrote Apple.

Although the Campus 2 will have some of the same amenities as the original campus, such as a restaurant and fitness center, the general public won't be able to visit it. This is most likely to keep Apple's R&D work under even tighter wraps than it is at 1 Infinite Loop, which is often sprinkled with visitors and executives from other companies. Apple was also recently approved to build a separate off-campus restaurant in Cupertino for its employees so they can discuss projects freely without worrying about outsiders spying on their discussions.

The Campus 2 plans certainly appear to be moving along, but it's important to note that the city of Cupertino has yet to give its final approval (Apple says that's expected to happen later this year). Apple has been pitching the city on the idea of building a new research facility for at least six years now, but presented its current ring-shaped design to the city council in August of 2011. The company doesn't expect to occupy what many call the "spaceship campus" until 2015. Apple's executives will most likely stay behind at 1 Infinite Loop—at least until Apple turns it into a museum one day.

Currently, the bridge going over 280 is only 2 lanes in each direction and get congested at rush hour. The off-ramp from the south is only 3 lanes and short.

Unless they plan to add lanes including to the bridge, it's going to be horrible traffic.

At their current location, one exit north/west of the new location, the off ramps are wider and longer, so less of a chance of traffic backing out into 280. Also De Anza Blvd is a nice wide 3 or 4 lanes in each direction.

Traffic is going to be a bigger issue. Cupertino Villages, a nearby shopping strip, isn't that busy, with a lot of ethnic businesses. But that would presumably change. Vallco, just across 280, is a dead mall but probably a lot of restaurants will open up to cater to employees.

Then there's some talk of a new "main street" shopping zone but not sure where that would be.

The current campus already attracts tour buses with tourists taking pictures by signs with the Apple logo. There is a company store which also attracts a lot of visitors. Not sure if they move much product or visitors mostly buy logo'd merchandise -- mostly clothing. They could probably build an Apple Store on the periphery of the new campus and attract a lot of customers but a couple of miles down, they already have a store at Valley Fair, where they're probably paying high rent.

The company also highlighted its commitment to the environment and said that the main, ring-shaped 2.8 million square foot building (as well as the surrounding research buildings) will all be LEED certified

This line is a little grating. It's really hard to take seriously Apple's "commitment to the environment" when this new campus is the purest embodiment of American car culture. It severs local streets, harming walkability; there's a massive parking garage instead of a concerted effort to get employees using extant mass transit; and they're consuming inordinate amounts of space compared to the amount of building being installed.

I doubt its LEED status (already a somewhat dubious metric for building greenness, since a lot of the criteria that get you points are pretty much ticking boxes) is going to make up for the extra neighbor and employee traffic.

The company also highlighted its commitment to the environment and said that the main, ring-shaped 2.8 million square foot building (as well as the surrounding research buildings) will all be LEED certified

This line is a little grating. It's really hard to take seriously Apple's "commitment to the environment" when this new campus is the purest embodiment of American car culture. It severs local streets, harming walkability; there's a massive parking garage instead of a concerted effort to get employees using extant mass transit; and they're consuming inordinate amounts of space compared to the amount of building being installed.

I doubt its LEED status (already a somewhat dubious metric for building greenness, since a lot of the criteria that get you points are pretty much ticking boxes) is going to make up for the extra neighbor and employee traffic.

But.... But..... LEED is a status symbol. You're not cool without LEED creds.

The company also highlighted its commitment to the environment and said that the main, ring-shaped 2.8 million square foot building (as well as the surrounding research buildings) will all be LEED certified

This line is a little grating. It's really hard to take seriously Apple's "commitment to the environment" when this new campus is the purest embodiment of American car culture. It severs local streets, harming walkability; there's a massive parking garage instead of a concerted effort to get employees using extant mass transit; and they're consuming inordinate amounts of space compared to the amount of building being installed.

I doubt its LEED status (already a somewhat dubious metric for building greenness, since a lot of the criteria that get you points are pretty much ticking boxes) is going to make up for the extra neighbor and employee traffic.

You... are so right! I never thought of it this way.

If only Apple were to criss-cross this are with more local streets, forgo any sort of parking garage, densely pack this area with low-density buildings so there's no open space, and abandon LEED standards, it would be a far more environmentally sound project.

And of course since this is all currently vacant lots the entire existing area generates no traffic at all. Damn you Apple!

This line is a little grating. It's really hard to take seriously Apple's "commitment to the environment" when this new campus is the purest embodiment of American car culture. It severs local streets, harming walkability; there's a massive parking garage instead of a concerted effort to get employees using extant mass transit; and they're consuming inordinate amounts of space compared to the amount of building being installed.

i could only make out one street being cut out. not sure i get your other point on the "walkability" of the parking lots that make up the current spot now.

to stop employees from driving to work apple would have to request for them to move within certain city limits. or allow them to work from home. either way thats not an architectural problem.

The company also highlighted its commitment to the environment and said that the main, ring-shaped 2.8 million square foot building (as well as the surrounding research buildings) will all be LEED certified

This line is a little grating. It's really hard to take seriously Apple's "commitment to the environment" when this new campus is the purest embodiment of American car culture. It severs local streets, harming walkability; there's a massive parking garage instead of a concerted effort to get employees using extant mass transit; and they're consuming inordinate amounts of space compared to the amount of building being installed.

I doubt its LEED status (already a somewhat dubious metric for building greenness, since a lot of the criteria that get you points are pretty much ticking boxes) is going to make up for the extra neighbor and employee traffic.

Apple has filed extensive plans with the City of Cupertino which detail improvements to traffic flow, improvements to walkability, and vastly improved safety for cyclists. There's also a custom-built mass transit stop for buses—some of which are paid for and/or operated by Apple itself—to drop employees off. Not only is tons of parking in the existing area centralized into a single employee parking garage, the garage itself is covered in solar panels to generate additional clean energy.

Additionally, Apple's plans for the landscaping include adding thousands of additional trees, removing existing trees that are in poor shape and replacing them with more native species.

Beyond that, LEED Platinum certification is far more than mere "ticking boxes," as I have witnessed first hand. There are only a few hundred Platinum certified buildings in the entire US, and it requires walking the walk, not just talking the talk (e.g. it even includes mandating environmentally friendly, biodegradable cleaners used by the janitorial staff).

There may be other reason's to criticize Apple for it's greenness (or lack thereof)—its China-based manufacturing still accounts for 61% of its carbon footprint, for instance—but this building isn't one of them.

There may be other reason's to criticize Apple for it's greenness (or lack thereof)—its China-based manufacturing still accounts for 61% of its carbon footprint, for instance—but this building isn't one of them.

Infinite Loop doesn't have a fitness center (at least it didn't when I was there). The fitness center is on Bandley, about five minutes walk away.

Infinite Loop also was not uniformly accessible. The reception area and where the software work is done is accessible to anyone who has made it into the building, but Jonathan Ive's world, and the buildings that worked on the new hardware had their own additional security. The implication seemed to be that leaks about advances in software were less worrying than leaks about hardware and design. (This may be a reasonable supposition in that, walking past an office and seeing what's on a monitor usually doesn't tell you that much about what's new, whereas seeing a new design really does immediately show you what's new.)Strangely enough, a lot of hardware work also happened at various buildings around Valley Green and Bandley which seemed to have minimal security. I wonder if that was a security by obscurity thing --- no-one walking by would realize that interesting things were happening in these various nondescript buildings.

Also, FWIW Infinite loop has both an internal cafeteria (for employees and guests) and also a third party restaurant essentially sitting in the parking lot. This is obviously helpful to Apple people in that they can meet others without having to take them into Infinite Loop, but the bulk of the restaurant traffic was not, I think, Apple related; just the usual people going to a restaurant. Back in the day this was the infamous Peppermill, but about twelve years ago it changed ownership and became a BJ's.

It sounds like the main difference with the new campus is that the security perimeter, the machines where you have to swipe your badge, will be a lot further out from the main building, so you can't do much lookie-loo'ing. WIth Infinite loop, the security perimeter really is the outer glass of the building, meaning that, without a badge you can wander around it, look in the ground floor offices, see what activity is happening and so in. I doubt anyone ever learned anything useful by doing that, but Apple is such a public company now that, among other things, they may just have a hassle with visitors parking in the lot, wandering outside the building, and so the place just doesn't feel very private.

Currently, the bridge going over 280 is only 2 lanes in each direction and get congested at rush hour. The off-ramp from the south is only 3 lanes and short.

Unless they plan to add lanes including to the bridge, it's going to be horrible traffic.

At their current location, one exit north/west of the new location, the off ramps are wider and longer, so less of a chance of traffic backing out into 280. Also De Anza Blvd is a nice wide 3 or 4 lanes in each direction.

Traffic is going to be a bigger issue. Cupertino Villages, a nearby shopping strip, isn't that busy, with a lot of ethnic businesses. But that would presumably change. Vallco, just across 280, is a dead mall but probably a lot of restaurants will open up to cater to employees.

How bad was the traffic when HP was there? Is Apple going to be packing more people into that campus than HP had?

Your point about Vallco (and that little strip mall opposite it) is a good one. I could imagine the owners of Vallco getting a major windfall from the campus. (Which will be nice. As someone who used to visit when it was still alive, it is really sad to see ghost-town Vallco today, and will be nice to see it resurrected.)

The company also highlighted its commitment to the environment and said that the main, ring-shaped 2.8 million square foot building (as well as the surrounding research buildings) will all be LEED certified

This line is a little grating. It's really hard to take seriously Apple's "commitment to the environment" when this new campus is the purest embodiment of American car culture. It severs local streets, harming walkability; there's a massive parking garage instead of a concerted effort to get employees using extant mass transit; and they're consuming inordinate amounts of space compared to the amount of building being installed.

I doubt its LEED status (already a somewhat dubious metric for building greenness, since a lot of the criteria that get you points are pretty much ticking boxes) is going to make up for the extra neighbor and employee traffic.

Are you saying this based on actual knowledge or on generic whining?The area right now is a collection of parking lots and more or less abandoned office buildings. It's not an area where anyone does much walking from A to B. The only real road that is severed is Pruneridge. The only people I see walking along that are people who live in the condos near Vallco and who might possibly want to walk to the park and pre-school between Tantau and Lawrence. I suspect that number is miniscule. Further, we don't know what Apple plans to do on their Southern Perimeter. If they build an access road there, parallel to 280 (basically the outer stretch of the immense parking lot that is there right now) that gets you to Tantau and is basically the equivalent of Pruneridge. Not a great walk ---- but it's not like Pruneridge is much better.

This little piece of Cupertino right now is what it is. All Apple is doing is changing it to a slightly different version of the same thing. You're upset that they aren't converting it into San Francisco, but have some common sense. Even if Apple wanted to do that, they can't. Apple are not property developers --- they're not in a position to create a large number of high rise condos in the area, to close 280 which goes right next to the plot, and otherwise to much around. And that's even assuming that the citizens of Cupertino want this sort of change, an assumption I doubt.

Likewise for "extant public transport". How do you want Apple to fix this? They already offered a variety of plans and vouchers to encourage public transport when I worked for them, and I'm sure they still do; but they can't change the fact that the plot is where it is. There is no rail nearby, and their employees are so scattered in where they live all over the South Bay that there's no realistic way for Apple to shuttle significant numbers of them in (basically the same problem the bus system in the South Bay has). I expect there will be work with the transit authorities to schedule (and perhaps detour) the buses running along Stevens Creek to pick up rail passengers on CalTrans and perhaps the San Jose light rail, but the best you can hope for that way is maybe 10% of the work force.

Apple's new "spaceship" campus will be entirely closed off to outsiders

I think that qualifies it to be called a "compound" instead of a "campus."

I think this is too extreme. There are various universities (ie campuses) that are stuck in less savory parts of time and establish a security perimeter around them that is traversed with key cards. I don't know if the US has any (maybe Columbia? maybe UChicago) but they exist in somewhere like South Africa, for example.

My guess (just based on US society in general) is that plenty of schools (ie K-12) operate on this model --- students and teachers can get in, everyone else is aggressively kept out.

Worked at EDS after it's hey-day...during the time when it was scrambling to make ends meet or else go out of biz. Would walk around the huge campus during breaks ... they had a heli-pad in the center of the campus that had roads feeding to all buildings. Some buildings had been designed to withstand a tank invasion, with odd-shaped hills and drop-offs. Walking around it, though... some buildings were no longer occupied, nobody was walking around, hardly any traffic, only 1 gate was being used. Looked dystopian.

I guess I'm wondering if Apple's making a big fan-fare now, but in 10 years time will their new campus look like a gluttonous tribte to their hey-day?

This building is more design centric than common sense. It is really a waste of real estate space with no implementation of facility organization. But hell, who am I to say this huh? Money talks and I have no idea what am taking about, perhaps is the reason here.

Worked at EDS after it's hey-day...during the time when it was scrambling to make ends meet or else go out of biz. Would walk around the huge campus during breaks ... they had a heli-pad in the center of the campus that had roads feeding to all buildings. Some buildings had been designed to withstand a tank invasion, with odd-shaped hills and drop-offs. Walking around it, though... some buildings were no longer occupied, nobody was walking around, hardly any traffic, only 1 gate was being used. Looked dystopian.

I guess I'm wondering if Apple's making a big fan-fare now, but in 10 years time will their new campus look like a gluttonous tribte to their hey-day?

Presumably what will happen then is what always happens --- some growing company will take over the space and use it. Apple took over Infinite Loop from Motorola. Google took over its Mountain View campus from SGI. There is, of course, a period during which the space is not fully used as the failing company tries to figure out its next moves, but that period doesn't last forever.

Yours is an attitude of paralysis --- we should never build a large building because, who knows, things may have changed in ten years.

As for

Quote:

This building is more design centric than common sense. It is really a waste of real estate space with no implementation of facility organization

What's your example of wasted space? Most of the space is used, for parking and the roof top portion of that for solar. You may have ideological opposition to a large amount of parking but, as I have discussed, Apple has little choice in that matter.

You might prefer a building that is taller --- but Cupertino has a strict building code that limits how tall buildings can go. Apple ran into problems with that over ten years ago. I don't know the details, but I suspect this large campus and large (in area) building are precisely a reaction to that --- they've have trouble before going up, so they have to go out.

You may think the park of empty space in the middle of the building is a waste --- but I suspect most employees will love it. Infinite Loop has an empty space in the middle, but not nearly as large, which means, among other things, that you can't grow trees there, only grass an bushes. This larger space should allow for trees, making it that much nice.

The one design decision I am not crazy about is the roundness. Infinite Loop has lots of curves, and among other things it means finding anyone else's office was a total PITA --- there was no obvious rectilinear plan to the offices. But I suspect that decision was somewhat orthogonal to the outer curves, and that offices in this new building COULD be numbered in a coherent manner if that is desired. Essentially what you have here is something like the Pentagon, and if they call the corridors A, B, C, D, E, and signboard them well, it might be easier to navigate than Infinite Loop.

I believe it's more densely packed than the HP buildings, which were at most 3 stories tall.

HP was more distributed, all the way out to Lawrence Expressway. They also had a lot of open space. We used to crash their beer bashes a long time ago and they actually had an empty barn.

Santa Clara Valley transit is really bad. When I was a kid, I would take the bus from Wolfe and Fremont to get to Westgate (Saratoga and Prospect) and it would take 90 minutes each way.

Apple now buses in a lot of workers from San Francisco, on coaches with Wifi. A lot of the people they've hired in the last 10 years prefer to live in SF. But if they consolidate a couple of dozen buildings into that one campus, it could be brutal on Wolfe Road.

The plan calls for bridge improvements on Tantau and Wolfe. The main entrance will actually be on the Tantau side of the campus.

I question if you really live around here though if you think Cupertino Village isn't that crowded. Try going at lunch or on a weekend. It's nuts, and the driving abilities of the primary clientele really make it bad.

Has no one at Apple considered the folly of trying to run a.....CONSUMER......focused company full of employees that spend their waking hours in a bubble completely isolated from the real world?

Is there a pun in there somewhere I'm missing? Or do you think Apple currently works in an environment fully integrated with the public? The shape of the building changes nothing. They seem to be doing ok currently.

I had suggested to Steve Jobs before he died and Apple Inc. both (via twitter and emails no one ever looks at) that they should consider a bit of a redesign here - the simplicity implied, while a nifty idea in principle, is just a little too much on that scale.

Suggestion was to do an outline of the Apple logo instead of a simplistic circle.